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Step One: Topic
The Joint Concentration thesis
**PLEASE NOTE that joint concentration theses including psychology as one of the fields are only permitted for students who entered Harvard College in Fall 2005 and earlier.**
All Joint Concentrations with Psychology require a thesis. Your thesis
will be administered by your primary concentration. Regardless of which
concentration is primary, Psychology requires that you obtain a thesis
supervisor from each concentration and a reader from each concentration.
Your Psychology thesis supervisor may be your informal joint concentration
advisor, or that advisor may recommend another faculty member.
The Committee on Undergraduate Instruction will assign you a Psychology
reader if you are unable to find one yourself, but it would be better for you
to find a faculty member who is sympathetic to your approach and
methodology, which is likely to be somewhat different from a standard
psychology thesis. Psychology also requires, regardless of your primary
concentration, that you complete all of the requirements of the psychology thesis. In your Junior year, you must submit a thesis prospectus at the end of your junior
year, and ideally hold your prospectus meeting. In senior year, you and your Thesis Committee hold a fall-semester
prospectus meeting, you submit a prospectus meeting form and a Mid-Year report by the Fall deadline and, after you submit your thesis, you present at the poster session and hold a defense at the poster session with your committee.
Your other Department may set additional requirements, such as a written
general examination or a non-thesis component to an oral examination.
The special challenge of a joint concentration thesis is to achieve a
synthesis of two perspectives or approaches to a problem of mutual
interest to two disciplines. This is certainly an ambitious undertaking, and
your success may be somewhat limited. Under these circumstances, it
will be very important to put together and consult regularly with a Thesis
Committee that is supportive of attempts to combine fields in an honors
thesis. A joint concentration thesis can thus be a difficult and at times
frustrating project, but with care it should be a commensurately satisfying effort. You are encouraged to be in touch with the Undergraduate Office early and often to help smooth the path to a successful joint concentration thesis.
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